[Lazarus] Stand-alone (external) Form Designer?

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

On 6 May 2010 10:36, Michael Van Canneyt <michael at freepascal.org> wrote:
>
> These are the easy things. You created what basically amounts to an editor.

Well with every new project you have to start somewhere! :) The fpGUI
IDE can already manage the fpGUI Toolkit code and the fpGUI IDE
project itself, and our company projects. With that it supports
various macros and build modes based on platform, and compiler used
(various versions are supported). So cross-compiling or switch between
compilers versions is already a trivial thing it my IDE.


> There are more things to Lazarus than just the editor, and it seems to
> me that people are forgetting this, taking many things for granted.

I definitely don't take the features for granted in Lazurus IDE.  The
fpGUI project taught me a lot.  As I said, I needed to start
somewhere. Managing a project and various build modes was the first
thing on my list. To get that working without version control systems
detecting project file changes the whole time (when switching
platforms), I had to implement Macro support too. A simple
step-by-step process to get to a end result.


> The hard things are - Code tools. The code tools in Lazarus are HUGE.

...and the reason I asked about the fcl-passrc parser in recent posts.


> - Extended designer. The fpGUI designer is rudimentary.

...simplicity by design. This allows it to do one thing and one thing
well. I hate software that tries to be too clever. Code Completion in
the Lazarus IDE is already stepping on my toes in some cases (and I
believe on yours too based on your posts is the past), and I have to
keep disabling those new "features" because they keep getting in the
way.  Simplicity is also a design. :)


> - Package support.  A huge domain by itself.

...and with it's own set of problems. I use non-visual (runtime only)
packages a lot, and sometimes they cause problems too. Something
simple compiler paths would have solved much easier. Take tiOPF as an
example: We have tiopf.lpk, tiopffpgui.lpk / tiopflcl.lpk and then
your project that uses tiOPF. If you want to change a persistence
layer, you need to modify the compiler defines (LINK_xxx) for two
packages and your project options, otherwise some code doesn't get
recompiled. Simple compiler paths with a single global compiler define
would solve this problem much easier.


> ... competition is OK, as long as it is in a healthy atmosphere.

That's the name of the game.  Just look at the amount of
cross-platform IDE's available for Java and C/C++. For Free Pascal, I
know of three (FP Text IDE, Lazarus and MSEide). So more choice will
probably be a good thing. We also learn from other projects mistakes.


-- 
Regards,
  - Graeme -


_______________________________________________
fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit
http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/